Back and opened for business

I am back from my summer break, we spent two weeks visiting Slovenia, relaxing in my parents' garden, admiring my mother's flowers and enjoying her cakes (she made this red currant one for my husband's birthday).

Second week of our family vacation was a bit slow due to me catching yet another throat infection (being sick in the hottest part of summer is no holiday) so I am extra glad to be home again, back to my sewing machine, my garden and, oh well, my pile of dirty laundry...

Loddelina shop is again opened for business and I am looking forward to starting some new projects - more to follow...

Have a great week ahead!

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Spet doma po dvotedenskih počitnicah v Sloveniji, kjer smo uživali na vrtu mojih staršev, občudovali mamine rožice in se sladkali z njenimi tortami (tole ribezovo je spekla za možev rojstni dan). Drugi teden počitnic mi je pokvarila zoprna viroza in biti bolan v najhujši vročini ni noben piknik zato sem še toliko bolj vesela, da sem spet doma, kjer me čaka šivalni stroj, moj vrt in seveda gora umazanega perila...  

Loddelina je odprla trgovino in komaj čakam, da se lotim novih projektov - več sledi...

Lep nov teden vsem!

Happy holidays

The school is almost over for my children and today I made little hearts, filled with lavender, that they will take to their teachers next week.

It is also time to tidy up my sewing space, list the most recent bag in Etsy shop and prepare for a short holiday with my family. I will be back soon, with some fresh plans for the new season, hopefully some more yummy fabrics and lots of pictures you can follow in my Instagram gallery.

Have a great weekend

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Šole bo kmalu konec in danes sem za učiteljice zašila majhne srčke, napolnjene s sivko. Zdaj je čas, da malo pospravim šivalnico, objavim najnovejšo torbico v Etsy trgovini
in se pripravim na kratke počitnice z družino. Kmalu se vrnem, polna svežih idej in z novimi kosi blaga, več fotgrafij pa lahko najdete v moji galeriji na Instagramu.

Lep vikend vsem!

Inspiration: France

Being an expat in France has its advantages - and I am not only talking about more than 350 varieties of cheese...
I mostly enjoy observing the local architecture, especially windows, shutters and doorways, and am always discovering charming details, be it in larger towns like Besançon and Dijon or small town houses in my neighbourhood (Pontarlier).
Here is a collage of images, taken by me in the last month and posted to my Instagram album.

Have a great weekend!

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Življenje v Franciji ima svoje prednosti, pa ne govorim samo o neštetih vrstah sira - zelo rada opazujem metstno arhitekturo, predvsem okna z očarljivimi polknami in vhode v stavbe, pa naj bo v večjih mestih (Dijon, Besançon) ali našem malem Pontarlieru. Tule je izbor slik iz mojega Instagram albuma, posnetih v zadnjem mesecu.
Lep vikend želim vsem skupaj!

Week in pictures

I am introducing a weekly post of selected Instagram pictures that sum up a week of inspiration, work, and fun behind Loddelina designs.
Sadly, I had to make my Instagram account private because it got spammed beyond control so unless you are following my feed you can no longer see the pictures (you are welcome to look for my account under @loddelina and send a request to follow).

First here are some images from week before last, spent in Slovenia, visiting my family, running some errands and sometimes walking my parents' dog Miško.

I spotted this old couple in Ljubljana one day - they were holding hands like newlyweds, exchanging a few words but mostly silently walking alongside, enjoying each other's company. And then there's Miško, enjoying his treat after a long walk. The woods around my parents' house are magical this time of year and even old churches look mysterious on dark and cloudy days.

Second set of pictures was taken back in France, where days are getting quite chilly and in the morning everyting is covered with a layer of frost  - I find this very charming excep when I have to scrape it off the windshield before driving my children to school. But frosty foggy mornings mean beautiful sunny afternoons so Tigger the cat spends as much time in the fresh air as possible - if not, he gets very bored in the evenings...

Have a nice Friday and the weekend head!

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Teden v slikah (skrajšana verzija, je že pozna ura...)

Tokrat nekaj slikovnih utrinkov iz moje Instagramove galerije - profil sem bila prisiljen zakleniti za javnost, ker so me do vratu zasuli s spamom. (Tako so slike trenutno dostopne le sledilcem, če pa želite to postati, me na Instagramu najdete pod @loddelina).

Prvi šopek slik je z mojega obiska Slovenije, drugi pa je nastal po vrnitvi v Francijo.

Želim en prijazen petek in lep vikend!

A cat in the frame

This past weekend I have been working on some new tiny house Christmas ornaments and a custom Leelou bag, a smaller messenger style bag with adjustable shoulder strap and this is a result -

I used two colours of cotton webbing for the strap, a salmon orange corduroy and warm grey upholstery fabric for the body and I ecru coloured ric rac trim with pale blue embroidery and zipper for decoration. As I was taking the pictures of the bag yesterday, I couldn't keep Tigrou the cat away from my reflecting silver foil that I use for counter ligh - it makes a delightful swishing sound that made him constantly jump into the picture frame!

Tigrou is settling in very well, after three weeks of staying exclusively indoors I started showing him the outdoors. We had a few excursions together with him safely on the cat harness and leash. Now that he understands this is his new home, I can let him out of the house on his own for short intervals and after 15 minutes or so he comes miaowing back - the chilly autumn weather also helps him return faster - no amount of freedom can replace a warm spot by the fire...

Pretekli konec tedna sem izdelala nekaj novih hišk - božičnih okraskov in dokončala naročilo - torbico Leelou, manjšo torbo s poklopcem za nošenje preko rame.

Naramnica je izdelana iz dveh različnih barv, torbica pa je iz oranžnega rebrastega žameta in sivega  tapetniškega blaga, okrašena s svetlim cik cak trakom ter bledo modro vezenino in zadrgo. Medtem ko sem torbico fotografirala, se mi je maček Tigrou kar naprej silil v kader, ker ga je privabljalo šelestenje srebrne folije, ki jo uporabljam za odboj svetlobe.
Tigrou se lepo privaja na novi dom, po treh tednih hišnega zapora sem ga začela počasi voditi na vrt, varno pripetega z oprsnico, zdaj pa ga lahko že spustim za krajši čas samega raziskovati okolico in po 15 minutak primijavka nazaj, mrzlo jesensko vreme ga prej prižene domov - svoboda ni nič v primerjavi s foteljem ob ognjišču...

Springtime inspirations

Spring is officially here and I am attracted by bright colours and bold combinations everywhere I go. Here are a few of my most recent colour inspirations...

Beautiful blooming forsythia on our way home yesterday afternoon

Who doesn't like baloons?

And who doesn't like flowers...

Some gorgeous fabrics at the curtains store

(Visit my Instagram album to see more pictures)

Enjoy your Sunday and don't forget to set your clocks if you are in a daylight saving time zone!

New home

After watching my husband play with iPhone application Instagram for the last five months and getting more and more hooked, I too started discovering this new platform for sharing images. The standard square format of photographs makes one pay more attention to composition of the pictures and application's many filters make it fun to change the mood, contrast and feel of each image. 

I downloaded some of my Etsy shop photos and cropped them through Instagram lense, which gave them a new, artistic look I like very much. Since I also like to take pictures of nature and all things that inspire me, it is now interesting to see all these images together on my Instagram account. 

You may find my pictures under username Loddelina or, if you don't use Instagram click on this link. 

Publishing pictures on Instagram also allows me to simultaniously post them on my facebook and twitter accounts. So many homes, so little time...

Autumn inspirations

  Japanese anemone - I love their delicate stems and simple blossoms

 Shiny, gorgeous wild chestnuts - I used to dye my hair that colour back in highschool :)

The prettiest side of rain

Venezia

We are back from our short visit to Venice and it is already time to pack for going back to France. 

Here are a few impressions of Venice in mid August heat - this time we decided to get a room in a small hotel and spend the night (booking the room online well in advance makes prices quite affordable). That way we could enjoy this overcrowded city in the beautiful light of late afternoon and the quiet of early morning (we were up at 6 to catch the cool morning light and still deserted streets before returning to our hotel for breakfast).

Definitely worth doing again next year...

More colour!

I decided to combine two of my favourite fabrics, vibrant corduroy in fresh, spring colours and patches of striped canvas from Maison d'Artiga.

The result are these (so far) two Maia zippered clutches, one in red, pink & purple combination and the other in robin egg blue & yellow mustard. I lined both purses with cheerful floral prints in matching colours and decorated the zipppers with handmade polymer clay beads.

I love saturated hues of these new purses but somehow their true colours don't always show in the photos of Etsy listings. I thought my computer screen was to blame so I opened several photos in different programmes - it turns out Etsy makes all pictures look duller and less sharp compared to same pictures, published on Flickr, Facebook and other places...

Other fellow Etsyians confirmed that it is the case in their shops as well. So for future listings on Etsy I will have to push the contrast and saturation up in PhotoShop and sharpen all the images.

:: same picture on Etsy and in PhotoShop window ::

Are any of you having the same observations? Please share!

Freshly baked

Lately I have been in the mood for colour, lots and lots of it, so I started sorting out the most vibrant textiles in my supplies closet to make a few new zippered pouches. But then I realized I don't have many colourful beads left, those large glass or wooden ones I like to use as zipper pulls (and I find them not just beautiful but pretty handy, too...).

So I thought I might make some beads myself - the only available material I had was polymer clay though it has been a while since I worked with it the last time. I have a small collection of basic hues of Fimo soft polymer clay and it took some effort to blend them into pastel colours I was after but at the end I was very pleased with the result.

I used some tiny plastic beads to decorate each large piece, sinking them into the soft clay before baking it according to instructions (half an hour at 130° C). I laid the beads on a small baking tray - a miniature one from Ikea that my children use to make playdough cookies.

I made the holes large enough for the leather cord I use to attach them to zippers.

This project was fun but I am still very far from mastering the clay modeling technique - I admire those Etsy artists who make lifelike miniatures out of polymer clay, like Stephanie from PetitPlat, or jewellery artists like Maja and Sonja.

Nevertheless, I can't wait to use my new beads in future Loddelina projects!

:: P.S. ::

Thank you, Sonja, for pointing out a few more things about polymer clay beads, I will consider them when I make my next batch. Those that I won't use for Loddelina purses I will keep on my sewing table - they will come in handy when Lily comes to play at my feet, she loves to string beads!

New season, new ideas

First blossoms of spring make me already think of summer, there is something about clear blue sky with puffy white clouds that evokes memories of childhood summer holidays at the seaside... I love the clean and fresh combination of sky blue, leaf green and white!

So this week I am working on a larger summer tote - perhaps not in the same colour scheme as this cherry branch (because I have to use some of many fabrics I have in stock) but the new bags will definitely say "Summer Time"

Stay tuned!

Daffodils

Spring is around the corner but it will take a few more days for the first cherry tree blossoms to open - on this high altitude spring is always delayed by at least three weeks...

But following a tip from the locals we drove not far from our town to find a field where the first daffodils have started popping out of the ground. It was a beautiful afternoon with wild clouds above our heads and the children enjoyed picking tiny yellow flowers (this wild variety is much smaller than what I am used to seeing in people's gardens, it only grows about 20 cm tall).

After a while the clouds got darker and our boots were covered in mud so it was time to go home.

In my kitchen now stands a beautiful bouquet of sunshine yellow blossoms to brighten up our mornings.

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Have a great weekend,

see you soon!

Winter impressions

The weather these days has been cold and windy, there is a promise of new snow in the air.

In spite of freezing temperatures, my parents' garden offers many interesting sights:

snowdrops waiting to open in the next sunny spell,

lifeless branches that will turn into a summer explosion of foliage,

frozen air bubbles in a water filled garden bucket

and my favourite, delicate lace on dried hortensia blossoms.

The MOO cards

Yay! it said on the package and that is exactly how I felt when I saw the envelope from MOO cards in my mailbox this morning.

I have been admiring these shiny, vibrant business cards for some time now and when I saw a special offer on Etsy, I decided to try them out.

50 free business cards (I only paid shipping from UK), come with a line on the bottom, advertisong Moo.com, but they still look great and you can chose one or 50 different images to feature on the front; I chose 13 different images but I think I will go for only 5 or 6 the next time. Some of the images came out a bit too dark so I will have to chose lighter, less contrasted items to feature.

The back of the card has plenty of room for all the information and even a business logo or a picture. The free cards are larger than normal Moo cards (5.5 x 8.3 cm) but they still fit neatly in this lovely card case I got for Christmas...

Flashback Friday

It has been a while since I played Flashback Friday with Tia...

So clicking through some older folders on my computer I found these photos, taken with my phone a few years ago during our stay in Augsburg, Germany. I usually carry my digital camera with me but sometimes it gets left behind and I am forced to capture an interesting moment with much more basic phone camera.

I find these four pictures very characteristic of our German experience (clockwise from top left):
- very determined Madame Chancellor
- "No ball playing" sign in front of the grocery store
- one of the local breweries
- whimsical decor in a bathroom of a Biergarten

Sunday inspirations

New snow on juicy winter berries - a feast for hungry birds...

Happy Sunday!

Winter is here ...

... and the first snow on the last blossoms of autumn ...

... and warm, wooly slippers on my daughter's feet ...

... and more snow to come.